Movember's Over!

Well, I think we'll call it a Movember!

On Friday night, we had a great party at the Big Bang to honor the end of the month (pictures are here)-- had several members of the team, along with a bunch of our sponsors and other supporters, brave the cold and parade traffic of downtown Nashville.







Who knew Metro would throw a parade to celebrate the end of Movember? :)

The final tally of all the donations submitted for Team Nash Stache was-- are you ready for this?-- $1,085.

Close to $1100. I just think that's amazing!




Many thanks to all the members of Team Nash Stache for their help and support throughout the last several weeks:
Chuck Bryant
Jackson Miller
Chris Chamberlain
Tom Mason
Bo Hussung
Anne Hussung
Justin Seiter
Chad Riden
Brad Blackman
Ryan Williams



Special thanks, of course, also to all those who chipped into the cause-- no matter the size of the donation, everyone who took the time to participate really helped make this whole thing worth it. Thank you.




Here's the donor's list. I hope I didn't miss anyone.
Allison Moeck
Andrew Duthie
Angela Theodoridis
Angie Miller
August Ray
Brad Blackman
Brian Bellliveau
Chad Riden
Chad Stahl
Chris Chamberlain
Christian Grantham
Chuck Bryant
courtney watson
Dave Delaney
Flip Kromer
Jack & Kay Mulkeen
James Belliveau
jan shipp
Jason Moore
Jason Wurth
Jean Belliveau
Jennifer Gilbert
Jim Reams
John Harbison
Justin Seiter
Kate O'Neill
Laura Hayden
Mark Anundson
Patty Mulkeen
Philip Cloutier
Rita Cloonan
Robert Hussey
Sabrina Cipriano
Sarah Miller
Tom Mason

This has been an awesome experience, and I hope we can get this group back together again next year! And judging by some of the pictures, I'm guessing Chuck (at left) would like to get this group back together, as well.
Til next year..

CanConnect

With all this noise I've been making about Movember around Nashville, the leader of a cool local Cancer Community resource-- CanConnect.org asked me to write a guest post for their blog. It was posted this morning. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Movember: we're having a party!

It's confirmed. We're having a Mo Town Nash Stache Bash at the Big Bang on Broadway in Nashville.
December 5, starting at 5:30pm (Happy Hour!) and going til they shut the place down.
If you've never been to the Big Bang, you need to go. It's a great time.
And it'll only be better with our team there celebrating the end of Movember, having some drinks, taking lots of pictures, and handing out a few prizes..

If you're on Facebook, you can find the details and RSVP here.
If you're not on Facebook and still would like to RSVP, shoot me an email and I'll put you down.

The Gauntlet, she is thrown down..

Our local Team Nash Stache is about to cross a milestone in its fundraising efforts for the Prostate Cancer Foundation-- we've nearly crossed the $500 mark!
That's a great achievement, thanks to generous donations from a good number of people. You can see an updated list of donors to each member of the team-- and also catch a few glimses of the Mo's in the making-- via their Mo Space Pages.
Here's the team:
Chris Chamberlain
Jackson Miller
Chuck Bryant
Justin Seiter
Tom Mason
Anneinreallife
Bo Hussung
Ryan Williams
Chad Riden
Brad Blackman

We're off to a great start and we're really going to do some good.

But I know we can do more!
We've got 11 days left in the month.. and there are 10 of us on the team.

$1,500.

That's our mark.
As the former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, might have said, "The gauntlet, she is thrown down."

Think we can make it?
I know we can.

And you can help. Just click here and make a simple $10 or $15 donation. Then pass the link on to a friend and let's see how high we can take this thing together.

Movember Day 16

It's the 16th Day of Movember.. the serious itchy-ness has passed... for now. But it's still very coarse and bristley.. my boys don't even want me to kiss them on the heads at this point. Maybe with a little more growth, it'll soften up?

Don't forget to hit my Mo Space Page to check progress and make a donation.

New Nashville Tech Podcast..

It sounds as though a few of the local Nashville Barcampers have brewed up a quasi-technology-oriented podcast. Jamie Meredith (http://www.tmgstudio.com/) and Tom Cheredar (http://tomcheredar.com/) are among the ringleaders. They've posted one episode so far and are, I'm told, in the midst of recording another one tonight.
Check it out:
http://nashtechnica.com
I'm glad to see the BarCampNashville/ local technology-ish conversation expanding..

Remembering...

On days like today, I try to take a little time to think about some of the truly amazing things people have done for our country, for the sake of freedom and democracy here and around the world.

In my own family, I think about three people, in particular.

First, my father. He served for 21 years, first in the Army and took part in the post-war occupation of Germany. Then, a few years later, re-joined in the Air Force and was involved in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. This picture was taken in 1950 at a site in Troy AL. My dad is standing in the back row, third from the left.



My uncle, Pat, served in World War II as a medic in the Philippines. He was injured in combat there on May 8, 1945, after delivering aid to more than 15 of his wounded comrades. He was awarded the Silver Star and a Purple Heart.













And finally-- I've been thinking today about my father's first cousin, Kieran Culliton, who was killed in action on December 27 1944 when his bomber, a B-24 from the 707th Bomb Squadron in the 446th Bomb Group, was shot down over the North Sea. Just a year earlier, Kieran had graduated from Harvard University, class of 1943. In this photo, he's kneeling, 2nd from the left.

For these and other members of my family, and for all those who have served in the name of freedom and democracy, I am humbled and grateful.

Facial Hair against Prostate Cancer

So I'm spending the Month of November growing a moustache. Technically it's a Van Dyke right now.. and technically that's against the rules.. but I'll get to that in a second.

A few weeks ago, my Dad was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Based on all the tests they've done, things look like it'll be okay. Scans indicate that, as well as anyone can tell, the cancer doesn't look like it's spread. And, although the biopsy indicates the cancer is pretty aggressive, this particular kind of cancer is about 90% treatable. Dad's begun a kind of hormone therapy that, by all accounts, does an incredible job at stopping the cancerous cells in their tracks.

So we remain cautiously optimistic. And in another couple of months, they'll do some follow-up tests and we'll know if this therapy has been effective and go from there.

You may be asking-- What the hell does all this have to do with Facial Hair?

Fair question.

Coincidentally or not, around the time that all this was going on, I spotted this tweet from @kevinrose about some kind of fundraiser to fight prostate cancer. The fundraiser is run by a group called Movember-- working with the Prostate Cancer Foundation. It took a couple of days to percolate in my head, but pretty soon it all came together.

For as long as I've been alive, my Dad has worn a moustache. I've never actually seen his upper lip in person. So it just makes sense for me to do this. And hopefully, we can have a little fun in the process and raise a little money for a good cause.

Now my Dad is not someone wanting to be made over.. in fact, I'm not sure he's crazy about this idea in the first place.

So it's not much-- but it's a little something I can do. We've recruited a bunch of my local Nashville friends and acquaintances-- Team Nash Stache-- and we're all growing some Mo's and publicizing for a good cause.

Want to help? Here's what you can do:

If you'd like to 'donate to my Mo', you have two options:

1. Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or

2. Write a check payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1827631 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Foundation
Attn: Movember
1250 Fourth St
Santa Monica, CA, 90401

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

The money raised by Movember is donated directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation which will use the funds for high-impact research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

Another option-- even though it's the 11th of November already-- it's not too late, if you'd like to join Team Nash Stache.

So come on and help us out. It's fun. And check out my Mo Space page for periodic updates. Who knows.. if I get to liking this thing, I might just keep it.

Goodbye, Sylvie

We lost our dear friend, Sylvie, today. Over the last several weeks, she seemed to get very frail and weak very quickly. The vet couldn't find anything diagnostically wrong for a cat her age-- she was around 15, we think. But she just wasn't herself. And it was obvious.

I can't write a proper obituary just now. After a day like today, I just don't have the words in me.

But suffice it to say that, in the end, she went off to sleep gently in my arms. Although we're sad to have lost the spunk, and sometimes spite (remembering the way she'd knock things off my dresser to wake me up to fill her dish), that she brought into our house over all these years, we know she's sharpening her claws somewhere on the Big Guy's furniture..
Sylvie Ferocious Johnson.
~1993-2008.
Rest easy.
There should be no shortage of fresh chow and a willing hand to wrestle with where you are now. We will miss you.

A Good Question

Watching Attack of the Clones with the boys this morning, in preparation for tonight's Clone Wars movie (they'll be going as part of friend Jake's Birthday party), when Aidan and I had the following conversation:

Me: See, Anakin and Amidala are falling in love.
Aidan: Why?
Me: That's a really good question.

A Few Standards...

A few standards of life in a house with two growing boys:
1) we're always out of something in the fridge or pantry
2) there's always a potty that needs unclogging
3) Jango Fett is always missing one of his guns (and sometimes his head)...

Before you discard...

how considerate of them to remind me...

My boys are Digging you..

A couple of quick little (sorry for the darkness) videos of my boys singing along to their favorite Geoff Smith song, Digg the Code.
Aidan got really shy after he realized I was recording them.. and now he's TERRIFIED that our friend Geoff might actually see this video... but I've assured him that all will be fine if he does. :)

Ones and 0s video

Nashvillegeek colleague, Geoff Smith's got a cool video out for one of the songs on his new album. It premiered tonight on Geekbrief.tv.. take a look.



Ones and 0s by Geoff Smith from Cali Lewis on Vimeo.

Nashville Tech: Jackson's Take

Jackson Miller, local contract software engineer and purveyor fine second-hand hipster gear, does a really nice job offering up his thoughts on Nashville as a Technology Hub

Nashville's Tech Mushroom...

Nice article here from VentureNashville.com (mushroom? really? does that evoke the right image?) about the various tech-oriented groups around town that have been meeting. And another post here at the VentureNashville blog that re-emphasizes the point of the article.. that these informal and institutional groups (i.e. Nashville Geeks vs. the Nashville Tech Council) don't seem to naturally co-mingle.

As someone who's attended events hosted across the spectrum, and also as a technology manager from the institution to beat all institutions, the great State of Tennessee, I have a few thoughts about this:

1) nothing against the NTC, but the few of their events I've attended have largely been about Tradeshow floors. Vendors trying to sell me something. Sponsors trying to get their 'impressions' quota. And lots of business card trading.

2) NTC events seem to largely center on DATABASE SECURITY. Just my impression. Nothing empirical to back it up. Not a lot about application development, user experience, UI design, or new technologies. Again, just an impression. I could very well be wrong.

3) like most professional associations, the conversations at NTC events are mostly alot of "this is what I do; now what do you do..." it's like a series of mini-interviews. Not very comfortable. Not very natural.

4) The Nashville Geeks events are largely about socializing. Informal, yes. Not a lot of collared shirts-- mine is sometimes the only one. And not exclusively a technology audience. There are artists and musicians and writers in the group. And lots of marketing folks. Tech-oriented, certainly. Folks who like to get their geek on with the latest WordPress release or tinkering with the latest social-networking-fad-tool of the day. And lots and lots of digital photography. And cutesy business.. er, calling cards. Lots of those as well.

To be honest, in some ways, I've felt a little out of place at the Geeks events only because I'm the only person (or one of the few) there who works for a large technology shop in a fairly formalized, not-too-cool, not-yet-too-open-source environment. My group's not blazing any trails with PHP or Rails. We're building enterprise software for a large, highly proceduralized government agency. Not a lot of the other folks at the table at Noshville are in that game. And yet, all that being the case, I feel very at home there.

What's ironic is that the social/digital media crowd at the Nashville Geeks events-- the breakfasts, the Barcamp Crew meetups, the bourbon nights-- the talk at those events is a lot about products and marketing and getting messages out to consumers-- this is what social media's largely about after all, isn't it-- but the atmosphere is more collegial than commercial. I'm not being sold something at Barcamp. I'm part of something.

Interesting that Digital Nashville's first mixer the other night appears to have been the first event that crossed this apparent boundary in any kind of significant way.. and everyone, even Dave Delaney, was wearing collared shirts!... and I missed the dang thing. Ah well, I'll be sure to catch the next one.

Exciting times to be in this industry in Nashville.. Looking forward to what's to come.
God, I love this town.

A little something different..

Okay, I don't mean to shill but we bought Geoff Smith's new album the other day.. in the hazy hang-over of having just spent the previous evening hanging with friends and neighbors (while the kids were at the grandparents') at Geoff's bar, the Big Bang. Such a good time.. and I was especially happy to get SleepyMama out there.

Back in February when I first visited the Bang, at the PodCamp Nashville after-party, I knew it was a place she'd enjoy.. and although I'd been encouraging her and some of the other Moms in our neighborhood to get over there for months since, this was the first time I'd been successful.. and happily, it was an evening when I was able to come along as well.

So that's that.

Anyway, while we were there, we were talking to Geoff and he was telling us a bit about his new album he'd just released, "Ones and 0s". He called it a 'Dynamic' album, in pre-release through his RingtoneFeeder service. Dynamic meaning the album has basically been released like a podcast. Purchase a subscription, hook up the rss feed in your reader of choice-- looks like it works best with iTunes-- and get the first 12 songs right away, along with a few other goodies (iphone ringtones, the "I'm a Twit" video, and the liner notes). In iTunes, it's pretty easy, then, to move the tracks over into your music library. And then, over the next year, Geoff says he'll be sending down more material to subscribers.. karaoke versions of the songs, live recordings, who knows what..

Well, it should be fun to find out. It's just an interesting experiment to take part in. And Geoff's a local Nashville artist, and a really genuinely nice guy.. so it's not hard to support him.

So, to all the 5 of you reading this.. go out and grab Geoff's album over at Ringtonefeeder.com. You don't have to have an iPhone. You don't have to have iTunes. But you do need to have 15 bucks. Not too bad.

And if you find all this dynamic stuff too scary for now, just sit tight.. the album will be available in more traditional formats (iTunes store, Amazon, even pressed CDs).

I hope you enjoy it. We're walking around the last few days humming "If This Geek Ruled the World" all over the house.

When worlds collide..

Found this video of my old grad school buddy, Mark Marino. We were in the English Dept at Notre Dame together back in the day.
Mark has gone on to become a professor at (the otherwise much hated) University of Southern California.. from what I've seen of his work, he's been doing some interesting research into the nature of narrative and exploring how an internet-enabled world is affecting how we think about stories.



But this presentation kind of turned my head. Perhaps if he's reading this, Mark can comment on his scholarly trajectory here... source code as literature.. interesting, but, speaking as a software development guy and former literary poseur, I have to ask..
can you guys be serious?

PodCamp Nashville interview reel!

I was wondering where this footage wound up.
Glad to see it finally online.
Dave Delaney came around with the camera and happened to capture my first in-person meeting with Geoff Smith.. pretty cool.
Someone should have reminded me to look at the camera, though.

iPhone: the wait may well be over...

The features, the 3G, the integrations with my Mac, the *price*.. and of course the age of my old Hello Moto Pebl.. all this adds up to a big hunk of geezelouiseitstimetobuytheiPhone...
Here's the WWDC Keynote in 60 seconds (courtesy of MahaloDaily):

Evening walks..

We love going for walks with the neighbor kids.. Springtime in Nashville is just a great time of year..

Breakfast: any given Sunday...

Breakfast: any given Sunday...
Originally uploaded by sleepydad

breakfast at our house on any given Sunday..

I'm on the Nothing Show!

This is truly weeks overdue but what can I say, it's been crazy.. and I've been lazy...
but HOLY CRAP! I'm on the Nothing Show!!!

What's the Nothing Show? you really just need to give it a listen to get it.. it's a great little podcast put together by Dave Delaney and Tim Coyne-- improvisational comedy using posts on Twitter as the only source material. Awesome.
Not sure that my tweets of the week preceeding the show really lived up to the quality of previous installments.. but it's an honor just to get nominated... and what a surreal experience to listen to Dave read my silly Tweets.

Dunkin Google Street View..

So Nashville Twitterati are all abuzz with the warm glow of Google Street View showing off all the sights in our fair town... if you know where I live, you can take a happy little Sunday Drive through my neighborhood and see my wife wait patiently for you to pass at an intersection on our street before she pulls out. It's always calm on Google Street view, you never have to worry about using your blinker.. and it's always late summer/early fall there. It's beautiful.

So tonight it occured to me to check out my old home town-- Leominster Massachusetts. And while almost none of Leominster appears to have been covered by the Street View crew, there were a couple of major thoroughfares near my old house highlighted in StreetView-blue, so I decided to take a little tour around town. It's been almost 8 years since I've been back there afterall.

And I have to say, this is a weird experience. I can imagine what it would be like driving through town-- that feeling of familiarity mixed with the alien sense of things not quite the same.
That alien feeling is all the more intense when you're 'driving' around town through a series of sometimes-not-all-so-contiguous freeze frames of streets and traffice.

But it's still pretty freakin' cool!

And then, just as I was about to wrap up, I decided to take a run down Central Street.. it caught my eye because on the Map, it appears that there's a big gap in the Street-View highlighting.. as if they skipped a quarter-mile of the road when they were filming. Did they lose the hard drive that day? bad sector?

So I pressed the Google accelerator and pressed onward toward the breach.. and a funny thing happened.
We turned into a parking lot.
Passed a row of cars.. passed the Leominster House of Pizza, where I used to get the biggest and best pepperoni pizzas any kid just finished with a little league or street hockey game has ever had.
and we pulled in for a quick stop at the Dunkin' Donuts.

Hey wow, they added a Dunkin Donuts in our little Johnny Appleseed Plaza. Cool! Hey wait a minute...


View Larger Map

Yep.. seems dude at Google didn't turn the camera off when he stopped in for a piss and a cup of Joe, I guess.

"Friends you know.. or pretend to know.."

...only you me and Michael Arrington will understand this..
Yes, we have beer cozies.

Top 5 Quarterbacks All Time

With the retirement of Brett Favre this week, there's been a lot of talk-- okay, almost all of it on ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike morning radio show..

So, for what it's worth, here's my Top 5 All-Time NFL Quarterbacks

1. Joe Montana
2. Johnny Unitas
3. John Elway
4. Terry Bradshaw
5. Dan Marino

Who are your influences?

Bands have always talked about their early influences-- giving a little window onto those elements that factored into their early development and made them who they are today. Did you listen to the Beatles or Elvis? Zepplin or The Who? Ratt or Motley Crue?

Nick Hornby's novel, High Fidelity, which was of course later adapted (pretty well) as a film, gets into this quite a bit as Rob, the main character, is constantly sorting and resorting his record collection.. reorganizing and reprioritizing those little sentimental pieces of himself contained in those records-- the times and places and people they represent to him.

I think about this from time to time-- in terms of music, literature, television, even philosophy... all things that put a little structure in your brain, that affects how you think about things from that point on.. These are the things you find yourself going back to over and over again, referencing in conversation, using to define some abstraction in your head.. or maybe these are just the experiences of things you reminisce about when you have a little time to think about the old days.

So who would I list as my influences?
Pink Floyd
Rush
Led Zepplin
Star Wars
The Tom Baker Doctor Who
J.D. Salinger
Plato, Republic
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
Bill Buckley
Michael Ondaatje
The ClueTrain Manifesto
Hornby, High Fidelity (I can't leave it out after I mention it in explaining my point, can I?)

So who are your influences?

Brett Hangs 'Em Up...

This is one of those sublime moments when you see the real heart of a competitor surrendering finally to age, fatigue.. finding himself in a place where he's forced to say "It's over."

Twitter in Plain English

Once again, the good people at CommonCraft-- Lee and Sachi LeFever-- bring order to the chaos and give us the words and images we need to explain something so simple and yet so incomprehensible to our friends and relatives..
On second thought.. I'm not sure I want my relatives a) reading my Tweets; or b) Tweeting themselves.

All the same-- this is awesome.

Best. Ad. Ever.

More Geoff Smith

Okay, one more..

Speaking of Geoff Smith...

It's amazing to discover the talent hidden in the people right around you.
Well, in Geoff's case, it's not hidden-- it's bursting out of him just constantly.

It's hard to be three...

We've been reminded repeatedly in the last many weeks, my wife and I, that we have a three year-old in the house. Or rather, we must remind ourselves of that-- otherwise, we might be inclined to think we're doing a really, really poor job as parents.
Behaviors from Bryce, the three year old, range from:
1) explosive tantrums
2) foot stomping
3) dramatic crossing of arms and cinching of brow
4) shouting that sounds more like barking "no no NOO!"
5) swinging of arms, pounding of fists-- on others, on self, on inanimate objects-- often accompanied by #2, foot-stomping.

I could go on.
And all this for simple offenses (by us, the parents) such as
1) requiring a jacket be worn when going outside
2) asking that Bryce take turns with his older brother
3) mandating that jelly beans and chocolate chip cookies are not good breakfast foods

Explosive. This is the word that most easily comes to mind lately when I describe my younger son's moods these days.

You'd think we'd have learned. I mean, we did live a whole year with a three year-old in the house once before. But that was a few years ago.. and our collective memory is not what it should be in matters like these.

So, sad as it is, I took some solace today when I read Blabbermouse's recent post, "In the Key of Three," about her own son, also three, and some of the behavior they've been seeing.

Parents in community with one another-- so much of the bonding we do comes from this basic feeling: "Oh thank God, we're not the only ones!"

You know what they say about opinions... John Rocker is an asshole.

Oh John Rocker, you are so 10 years ago.
You may have been on the juice.
And Bud Selig may have known it.
Hell, who couldn't have guessed it?

But I'm sorry to inform you: you're still not relevant.

PodCamp Nashville 2008

Good times!
So how'd you spend your Saturday?
I think my wife thought I was crazy for getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning.
But it all came together quite nicely, I think. As with BarCampNashville back in the summer, Dave Delaney and Kelly Stewart (along with Ted Chapin, Marcus Whitney, Alison Groves, and a host of others) put on a great event-- we counted 181 attendees-- with a pretty good mix of presenters.
Ranging from people who are figuring out how to make a real living on podcasting, to a few different talks about some of the gear and software involved in making the whole process go. And then, of course, Dave had to talk about Twitter! So key.
Keynotes were by CC Chapman-- whose sisters confided that they call him Charlie-- and Joseph Jaffe. I didn't get to hear every word, but if memory serves-- Chapman reflected on the Barcamp/Podcamp Social media phenomenon and urged everyone to get involved, get up and talk, reach out to people and get something started. Jaffe's talk focused on the revolutionary things that are happening as user-generated content-- podcasts, primarily-- are changing the equation for radio and other old media. Television will still own the living room-- to paraphrase Jaffe-- but Podcasts will own the gym, the walk to work, the commute.. virtually everything outside the living room.
Talk of the day didn't really have a lot to do with podcasting, per se. Scott Schwertly, of Ethos3-- a self-described "epic storyteller"-- gave a presentation about giving world-class presentations.. and it's safe to say, the guy knows how to put a slide deck together. Not sure if the literary world would agree with his own assessment of his storytelling-- but it certainly is nice to see someone remind us that giving a talk-- whether it's to give a pitch, teach a class, convey a concept or otherwise connect with an audience-- telling a good, intellectually or, more often, emotionally engaging story is perhaps the most effective mechanism for getting one's point across. Nicely done.
Then, when it was all said and done-- we took down the screen, put up the chairs (apologies to anyone who's chair I may have stolen prematurely-- we got pretty tight on time there at the end)... and a bunch of us made our way over to the Big Bang on Broadway. Geoff Smith, a member of the BarCamp/Podcamp crew-- it turns out he plays a little piano there. Who knew?
Actually, he's flat-out amazing. If you're in Nashville, go to the Big Bang. Do not delay. My advice, get there before 7:30.

Click here for pictures from PodCampNashville

And here's a short video Dave shot at the Big Bang..

"Like a day out of the old New York"

Lupica's got a nice story in today's Daily News about the parade in Manhattan for the Giants.

The last time there were crowds like this on the streets of lower Manhattan, they had been heading north on the worst day the city has ever had. Tuesday they were on their way downtown again, trying to get the best places on Broadway to cheer a team that for a few weeks lifted us all.

Think Tom's learned another lesson since Sunday?

Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for the New England Patriots, and even Tom Brady. But does this not go down as one of the great crow-eating moments in sports?
It's one thing for a young, upstart, underdog team like the Giants to spout their mouths off during Media day and say all kinds of things they're "not supposed to say." But for a guy like Tom Brady to dismissively ridicule Plaxico for making the prediction, while indirectly making a prediction, himself: I mean, *smirk*, don't all reasonable people agree that the Pats are going to score more than 17? Haha.. hoho..

Get over yourself, Tom.
Glad you learned a thing or two about New York other than where to pick up Supermodels.

Oh but it is good to be Giants...

Can you blame Strahan for giving voice to the feelings that must have been reverberating through the Giants lockerroom for weeks before the Superbowl.. if not during the stretch of the playoffs?
This team was consistently overlooked by the national media, never given credence.. disrespected...

I grew up in a house of Giants and Patriots fans.. dual loyalties in me that have never been so divided as they are now. Time was, the Pats were safely irrelevant while the Giants won championships in 86 and 90. In years since, of course, the Pats have become content with their own greatness. Smug, even. And with the way they were beating teams in the regular season this year, who could blame them.

But for whatever reason, even as great as the Pats appeared to be, no one was paying attention to the Giants-- their 10 wins, undefeated on the road... underdogs throughout the playoffs... yes, even going into Tampa in week 1. Tampa? Seriously.

I mean these are the guys who were chided by the press (and the Pats, themselves, of course-- more on that in a bit) for their 'false confidence', their chest-out talk, their predictions following Media Day. They broke all the superstitious rules-- and afterall, these Patriots know how to behave on Media Day and look at them, all well-behaved and tight-lipped...

After all that, who wouldn't be tempted to say "Howya like us now?"

So forgive the Giants if they're flat-out obnoxious in victory. With the way that they pushed the Patriots around on the field (where it counts, right?), just physically overpowering the offensive line, knocking the great, un-muddied Tom Brady to the ground a dozen times or so-- has Brady ever been so harrassed in a game?-- with the way the Giants' smash-mouth broke the Pats' finesse, they deserve to get a little bit back. Turnabout is fairplay.

Dudes...

Good stuff.

It doesn't take long..

Perhaps it doesn't help that I've been watching bits and pieces of The Lives of Others the last two nights.. so I've got old East Germany on the brain and I come across this article by Andrew Curry in Wired magazine tonight ("Piecing Together the Dark Legacy of East Germany's Secret Police") about the guys in East Germany tasked with piecing together, until recently entirely by hand, the millions of shreds of paper left behind by the old Stasi secret police.
It's an awe-inspiring read for a couple of reasons:

1. it's a stark reminder of the lengths to which the East German government went to keep hold on the quite literally captive populace there. I mean we're talking about agents deflating people's bicycle tires repeatedly to give them a sense that they're going crazy...
2. the numbers of documents this team is having to contend with are just ridiculous. A 60,000 square-foot warehouse, three stories tall, stacked to the rafters with bags-- just bags stacked on bags-- full of documents, transcripts, carbon paper, file folders, all torn to shreds.. many of them by machine.. but millions of pages were torn apart by hand in the last days of the East German dictatorship, as the Wall was coming down. These people tore these documents up by hand. For weeks.

At their current rate, reconstructing the documents by hand would take another 700 years.
700.

So now some smart guys have figured out how to have software piece the documents-- once scanned into a server farm-- together once and for all and give some of these people who were targeted by the Stasi some piece of mind about what was recorded.

I know, I'm paraphrasing much of what's in the story.. but my mind is just blown away by this whole endeavor-- the back-story, the problem, the solution, and everything that's at stake.

And then, buried deep in the article, near the end, there's this small stat that I found really unsettling:

In November, the first children born after the fall of the wall turned 18.... In a survey of Berlin high school students, only half agreed that the GDR was a dictatorship. Two-thirds didn't know who built the Berlin Wall.

I was in highschool when the Berlin Wall came down and I guess, even as young as I was, it had stood as such an icon of that era-- the Cold War, Eastern Bloc totalitarianism.. it's shocking to me to consider that there are kids coming of age now who live in a world that never had a Berlin Wall-- this is good-- but who also don't know enough recent history to know how it came to be erected or who was responsible for it. That's shocking to me. I can only imagine how it must be for some of those people who's names appear on those shreds of Stasi paperwork.

"Who's been messing with the computer?"

"Not me, Dad!" comes the reply, in unison, from my two sons.
The forensic evidence says someone's not being truthful..

Lost Awesomeness..

"Mr. Friendly throws like a girl..."

Nashville Geek Breakfast

Ben Folds & Kelly Stewart
Originally uploaded by kelstew

Took another headlong dive into the local tech/new media/blogger/social networking scene this morning and sat down at the 2nd Nashville Geek Breakfast over at Noshville over by Vandy.
Had a great time-- old friend Tom from back in the PBI days showed up as well-- and got to meet a number of the good people I've been corresponding with since this past summer's BarCamp Nashville.

As you can see, the company was pretty luminary this morning. Ben Folds jumped right up and took this opportunity to have his picture taken with Kelly Stewart.
No word yet from Kelly on who'll be appearing at next month's Geek Breakfast, but I'm sure he'll line up a hum-dinger.

Thanks again to Dave, Kelly, Marcus, Jackson, Kate, Ginger and everyone else for making such warm, welcoming bunch of good people to have coffee (lots of coffee!), talk a little business, and have a few laughs with.. looking forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Next up: PodCamp Nashville is February 9.

Want to go to the next Geek Breakfast here?
Keep tabs on the plans in the Facebook Group (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7035651703&ref=mf)

Coach R.G.

Good story here from the NYT about former Irish (and former NY Giant) Running Back, Ryan Grant.

Extraordinary, Revolutionary, and Better...

Nicely done by Mahalo Daily

The SleepyDad Anthem

A sublime elicitation of the state of being a SleepyDad...

"If I were you, I'd just buy some bigger shirts.."

I'm not great Peyton fan, but the man has comic timing... and he is the face of the NFL, no doubt about it.

The power of Flickr

P1132372
Originally uploaded by peregrinari

Behold the power of Flickr.. bringing Cholita wrestling into your living room...

Twitter Village

Twitter has really been grabbing my attention lately.
And now, so have these articles, one on the 'Twitter Village' and one related by Shel Israel... powerful stuff this.

Follow me on Twitter here.

We are all Rockstars...